For the next square in my sampler, I decided to try another pulled stitch that uses backstitch as its main component.

The square-backed stitch (or square backstitch) is similar to the ring backed stitch, except that the backstitches form large squares instead of rings.

The square backed stitch is worked diagonally. The black dot is where the thread comes to the front of the fabric. The solid lines show the thread on the front of the fabric and the dotted lines the back. The black lines represent the first half of the row and the red lines represent the second half of the row. The grid represents the thread count of the fabric.

For my sampler, I made my stitching bigger than the above diagram, with each stitch crossing four (instead of three) threads of fabric.

This is my finished square:

My fourth sampler square contains only square-backed stitch, as it covers a large area and I wanted to see how it looked in several rows.

I didn’t really like this stitch much. It felt awkward and the underside of the stitches can show through the spaces made in the fabric. That is probably why I only did half of the square with it. It does still look good though.

There are a few other varieties of pulled stitches that can be done with backstitch, as backstitch does lend itself to being pulled. You could even make some of your own patterns or variations of backstitch in sequences.